Voyage
by Gimmickry
Summary: While plummeting towards the Earth with Maria, Shadow worries about the future. Meanwhile, Maria tries her best to see the positive in tragedy. She is not successful. /Canon Divergence AU one-shot Platonic Shadria/


Voyage

Summary: While plummeting towards the Earth with Maria, Shadow worries about the future. Meanwhile, Maria tries her best to see the positive in tragedy. She is not successful. /Canon Divergence AU one-shot Platonic Shadria/

Rating: T

Genre: Drama/Tragedy

Shippings/Pairings: Platonic Shadria (ShadowxMaria)

Warnings: changes to canon, sci-fi inaccuracies, swearing, implied violence, implied character death(s)

Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog is the intellectual property of Sonic Team.

A/N: Long time no see! Why the sudden inspiration for a Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic, you ask. Well, I finally got my hands on a GameCube copy of _Sonic Adventure 2 Battle_ that I've wanted for years, ever since I beat the prequel as a kid. So, to celebrate the occasion, I decided to write this one-shot — please enjoy!

* * *

Amongst the ARK personnel, the emergency escape pods were collectively referred to as 'EEP.' It was done in that dry and sarcastic, yet ultimately humorous manner all too reminiscent of black comedy that only scientists who endangered their lives and sanity on a daily basis could ever truly understand. It was not uncommon to hear gems by the likes of _"If the going gets tough enough to say 'Eep!' — head for the 'EEP!'"_ sprinkled about in everyday conversations like salt at a breakfast table. It was a coping mechanism through and through: a social pressure relief valve that everyone acknowledged, albeit never aloud. Truly, if humour were ever to be lost at a place like ARK, it would all be downhill for humanity from there.

It was not as if Shadow did not get the joke — he did, to his dismay. Certainly, 'EEP' was short and sweet, despite its bitter aftertaste. Some argued that the brevity made it ideal for emergencies, where time was a luxury wasted on words and better spent running — there was that, sure.

Unfortunately, the name was also goddamn _stupid_. No amount of argumentation could ever hope to convince Shadow to think otherwise. That the name was both stupid _and_ short, instead of just plain stupid, was his only comfort: for plain stupidity without any extra function, pretence or purpose — now, _there_ was something he despised with abandon.

Regardless of Shadow's negative opinion on word play, lame human humour was the least of his worries while stuck in one of those emergency escape pods (or 'EEP' or _whatever_). Everything was small and narrow, with no room to move: his limbs were falling asleep, and his quills were all but squashed against the cold and hard ballistic glass. With his black-and-red spines in disarray, Shadow felt shabby in every sense of the word. Although, his current condition, shabbiness and all, could not be faulted to the lack of space alone.

_(It was because they had been running for their __**lives—**__)_

Shadow was quite certain that should he try and extend his arms outwards at his sides, all five of his fingers would come in contact with glass. The glass was bulletproof, but at the end of the day, glass was still _glass_, one of the most brittle elements known to man.

It was also translucent, which made him all-too acutely aware of the following fact:

Currently, see-through vitrified sand was the only barrier standing between Shadow and the vacuum of space.

That there was but an inch of glass keeping certain death at bay added to his new-found claustrophobia, which lingered somewhere at the back of his mind, in that same cobwebbed corner that harboured primordial distrust towards things like the open fire and the dark.

No intelligent being was ever quite free of its instincts, for better or for worse.

As starved for space as Shadow felt, at least he was fortunate enough to not have his head hit and hammer the ceiling due to turbulence. (Or was it the floor? It was hard to say which way was up when one was falling through space. Disorientation was a real bitch in near-zero gravity, go figure.) It seemed that the luxury of ample headroom was only granted to the woodland anthropomorphs such as himself, or those otherwise abnormally short in stature. Humans could not even take solace in that small comfort.

Who was that dimwit of an engineer who had blueprinted this blasted thing?! Shouldn't all the dimensions have been at least triple-checked? Shadow knew nothing about architecture, much less _space_ architecture, but he was _damn_ sure that if there was something — _one thing_ — one should never, under any circumstances, screw up when designing a _**FUCKING**__ SPACE COLONY_, it was the emergency evacuation measures. He was certain that someone must have made a miscalculation somewhere—

_(But the pod had never been designed to accommodate two people, had it?)_

Shadow's eyes darted to the small screen located at nine o'clock, where ominous glow-in-the-dark numbers were counting down in a flurry of milliseconds to the estimated moment of impact—

**00:30:19:25 00:30:19:24 00:30:19:23 00:30:19:22 00:30:19:21 00:30:19:20 00:30:19:19 00:30:19:18**

This safe haven in a bottle — this small and _terrifying_ haven — would only last for about a half an hour, now. Not that Shadow was worried about himself. He was the Ultimate Lifeform, not bothered by wear and tear in the slightest. He had been built to last, come hell or high water.

_(And hell had__** come—**__)_

Shadow could handle this, lack of space and squashed quills and all, but Maria—

_(—setting their world __**ablaze—**__)_

—_Maria_, she was frail and sick and exhausted.

Shadow would have to help her prepare for the impact: prop her neck and support her head to make sure she would not suffer a concussion at the crash, as controlled as that was supposed to be. Even now, he was trying his best to cushion the back of her head so that it would not hit the ceiling. Cradling it with one hand, his other hand was holding hers in an act of empty comfort. Despite his efforts, there was jumble and jostle throwing the curled-up figure about. It upset Shadow to no end, but he did his best to keep the girl still.

He knew that he was delaying the inevitable; he had realized it the very moment Maria had thrown that lever of no-return. All the same, he was desperate to be of some use, knowing that he could not protect the girl much longer. Shadow was a genetically engineered military weapon of mass destruction: he could fend off soldiers, the entirety of G.U.N., the damn _world_ if need be—

—but the true threat to Maria's life was slow, invisible, _unfair_…and impossible even for the Ultimate Lifeform.

NIDS was a terrifying disease: it deteriorated both the immune system and the nervous system in a brutal, never-ending double assault. Shadow had witnessed it first-hand: the common cold could render one bedridden for months, and a relapse lead to multiple organ failures.

There were good days — and then, there were days when Maria could not move, not even in her wheelchair. On those days, Shadow was her arms and legs, waiting at her beck and call (but she never asked for much). Should she have lost her sight overnight, he would have been her eyes, too.

It was cruel — and without a cure. So, no matter what he would do, as soon as they landed on Earth—

_(__**—if**__ they landed on Earth—)_

—Maria's days would be numbered.

_(But her days had always been numbered, hadn__'__t they?)_

Shadow shook his head.

_Focus! _

Another glance at the numbers.

**00:22:05:11 00:22:05:10 00:22:05:09 00:22:05:08 00:22:05:07 00:22:05:06 00:22:05:05 00:22:05:04**

"_Hhh…h—!"_

Shadow froze at the sound of Maria's voice. It was like a sigh, sob, or laugh — all three mixed into one cough. Her voice was dry out of disuse: she had kept quiet ever since her initial scream of surprise when the pod had plunged into the abyss. For a moment, Shadow took fright, fearing that she was about to go into seizure. It would be the ultimate worst-case scenario; there was not enough room for the girl to have a safe episode. She would hurt herself—

"…Maria?"

Maria threw her head up with a jerk. Shadow saw that her skin was ashen, even more so than usual, and that her face and eyes glistened, wet and drenched in tears, because the professor was — no, Grandfather was _dead, everyone was __**d-dead—!**_

_(—running through hell, stumbling over still-warm corpses, unable to save but each other—)_

Shadow shut his eyes.

Not now, not yet. Not when they could still afford to avoid reality—

_(—but they would have to face it sooner or later.)_

"Maria, I…" he tried to utter, but found himself unable to speak. At a loss for words, he had to settle for squeezing her hand in his in order to offer some consolation. Not that any words in the world could have soothed a situation this dire: in a matter of hours, the two had lost their home, their family and friends — and now, they were lone fugitives on the run.

There was nothing he could do, not anymore—

"Sh-Shadow, we're…g-going to Earth."

Maria's voice was small: so small that Shadow had to prick his ears to hear her. Even then, he doubted himself, despite the fact that he was trained to hear a pin drop amidst gunfire. His eyes snapped open to stare at her in utter dumb shock—

But Maria's face was still stricken with grief. Her cheeks continued to mar with fresh tears, and her dry lips were still held in a strained, narrow line. Yet, it was all etched into a _smile—_

* * *

"_You know, Shadow…"_

"_Hmm?"_

"_Sometimes, I can__'__t help but think I remember something about living on Earth. It's nothing much, really — little bits and pieces here and there. But then I realize my memories can__'__t be real."_

_Shadow cocked his head._

"_How so?"_

_Maria chuckled, not at all unkindly._

"_Because of childhood amnesia, silly!" she said._

"…_because of what, now?"_

_Of course Shadow would not have known about that. Not even Maria had known about it until browsing through the latest batch of research literature — books, dissertations, theses — that had got delivered to Grandfather's study last month._

_Maria liked reading._

"_Childhood am-ne-sia," she repeated, and punctuated each syllable with a poke to his side._

"_It means," she said, pausing to consider the best possible explanation in layman's terms, "that humans can't recall their early childhood, before the age of four or so. At least, not that clearly — I think," she conceded, hesitating a little, "not like I can remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday."_

"…_so, what did you eat for breakfast yesterday?"_

"_Shadow!" Maria huffed in mock indignation, "Do you want me to explain or not?"_

"_You don__'__t have to, I__ can __remember it for you: toast and orange juice, eggs sunny side up—"_

"_Shadow!" Maria cried out. She was laughing, despite her best efforts not to:_

"_Goodness gracious, you really are hopeless sometimes!"_

_Shadow said nothing, and hid his smirk._

_Maria laughed until her giggles subsided into snickers, then into a grin, and then into nothing. Soon, she was back at running her fingers across the windows at the observation deck. This deck happened to be one of her favourites — though, there were few for her to choose favourites from. She was dragging her pointer across the glass in an attempt to chase imaginary raindrops, absent in her thoughts until she decided to continue:_

"_Grandfather brought me here when I was still a toddler — did you know that?" she asked, only to stop and shake her head, "You did, didn't you? Of course you did. I'm sorry, I must've told you this a thousand times before—"_

_Shadow would have reassured Maria that he did not mind, but—_

"…_I wasn__'__t even two at the time," she whispered in a sudden, odd tone of voice that he could not quite place, "so, even if I think I remember something, it can__'__t be real."_

_Maria was smiling at the girl in the glass, but Shadow did not think she looked happy._

"…_what do you remember, then?" _

_Maria stilled, her fingers pressed against the glass in thought. When she spoke, she sounded hesitant:_

"_I…I think I remember doing something like this, back down there. There was rain — it, it stuck to the windows, a-and," she squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to make the images rattling at the back of her mind more clear, "a-and I would follow the raindrops with my finger…to, t-to see which one would make it to the bottom first."_

_Maria relaxed visibly — as if she had just finished some herculean task. Not soon after, she opened her eyes in delight as another memory came to her:_

"_The sky! The sky! I remember how…how blue the sky was! Oh Shadow," she said, and took his hand in hers, "it__'__s so dark and dreary up here, but back down there," she sighed, "it__'__s all so…blue…"_

_Her dress was blue; her shoes were blue; her headband, and even her eyes were blue – but not blue enough to rival the Earth__'__s sky, it seemed. Yet Shadow, who had no former frame of reference to fall back on, failed to see the difference. _

_He returned the girl__'__s gesture in appreciation, letting her hold his hand. _

"_I don__'__t see how your memories can__'__t be real," he said, "if you remember something, it must__'__ve happened."_

_And there was the _real smile—

* * *

—a smile that was desperate and broken.

"We're…w-we're going to Earth, Shadow!" Maria hiccoughed, all the while wiping her eyes in an attempt to get rid of her tears, only to spout apologies: "S-sorry, sorry! Th-they just keep coming, k-keep c-c-coming—!"She shook her head, sending her knotted hair into another fit of tangles, which would not come loose without a good brushing—

"We've always…always, _always_ wanted to go, right? Shadow, we want to see the Earth, right?" she sputtered, as if she were to die should she stop talking. Faltering, she threaded her wet fingers with his and squeezed, but her hands trembled too much to apply any force. "I…we…w-we," she stammered in vain, each stutter sounding more indecipherable than the last—

"We…w-we j-just…!"

She lurched forwards to meet his gaze with a sudden, startled look — and with a sinking feeling, Shadow realized that he could no longer deny the truth: this was the reality, in all its horror, staring back at him in Maria's eyes like in a mirror.

And then came the first _crack—_

"J-just…n-not like th-th-_THIS!"_

Maria howled.

Shadow could do nothing but wait for everything to pass. He counted all of Maria's shaky, shallow breaths, heaving coughs and quivers, and the minute muscle spasms ravaging through her system. His hand was hovering over the small of her back out of habit.

_I__'__m sorry I ever wanted to go to Earth — I__'__m sorry, I__'__m sorry, __**I**__**'**__**m sorry—!**_

_(Had they not made that wish, would things still be…?)_

**00:20:00:01 00:20:00:00 00:20:00:00**

There was a moment.

**00:20:00:00 00:20:00:00**

Then another.

**00:20:00:00 00:20:00:00**

And another — as if out of pity.

**00:20:00:00 00:19:59:99**

But even in space, so very far from humanity, time stood still for no man; it moved on while others did not. Too exhausted to even lift a finger anymore, Maria let Shadow tuck some thinning strands of leaden blond behind her ear. Her eyes were stinging with a dull ache, red and puffy, now all but bled dry.

Slowly, Shadow began to undo the knots in her hair—

"Yes, Maria…" he said.

—one at a time—

"…we're going to Earth."


End file.
